Apocalyptic Gotham: Three Experiments in Anarchy
by Sugary Snicket
Summary: Gotham, interrupted: The Joker won, and Batman's nowhere in sight. These are three short stories that tell the tale of the downfall of a broken city. Put on your goggles class, it's going to be volatile. Allegory, One-shot, A/U. No pairings.
1. Experiment 1: Entropy

_**A/N**__:__** There is a certain set of laws in Chemistry known as the Laws of Thermodynamics, which describe the properties and transport of heat in a thermodynamic process (also known as a chemical reaction to those of use allergic to big words). The first law states that matter and energy are neither created nor destroyed, the second states that any system that isn't balanced tends to move towards maximum disorder and randomness (entropy), and the third states that entropy reaches a minimum as a system reached absolute zero (which is impossible to reach, by the way). If we were to apply these laws to a social setting, the first law would be irrelevant, since people are created and destroyed every day; the second would indicate some sort of social upstart and the panic that followed, and the third just wouldn't make sense. In fact, with all the violent acts committed in a large city, one might say that we can easily observe the second law of thermodynamics outside of the laboratory just by witnessing a city bombing, a school shooting, or a terrorist attack. Any sort of violent upstart, whether passive-aggressive or blatant, is bound to produce chaos.**_

_**If this is the case, then Gotham City is a veritable crucible of entropic 'thermodynamic' changes. As with many chemical reactions, there's a catalyst to jumpstart the reaction and unbalance the system. In Gotham's case, that catalyst is the Joker, whose constant attacks on the city, culminating in his climactic "social experiment" near the end of the film (an example of a phenomenon known as a Prisoner's Dilemma) provides a fast track towards entropy. It's all too apparent that if Batman were not around, the Joker would cause Gotham to spiral into such disorder that the entire city would fall apart. The city would literally be his. Such is the concept behind this short fanfic. I started out with the word entropy – a simple word that simply describes a descent into chaos. There is no Batman to save the city this time. There is only the precariously balanced system, the flawed crucible, and the heat. This is not a Gotham as it is in the film; this is a Gotham in, essentially, a small-scale apocalypse. It's a glimpse through the eyes of an average Gothamite experiencing thermodynamics firsthand. Take it for what it is – an allegory I wrote in the middle of a slow day in Chemistry class. I hope you enjoy it, though it's extremely short – the shortest fanfiction I have written yet, in fact.**_

_**DISCLAIMER: I own nothing but the idea for the fanfiction. Please don't let the scientific nerdiness above scare you out of reading this story – I really do like my readers and reviewers…**_

---

**Entropy**

"_It is the natural tendency of a system to move towards increasing chaos and disorder."_

_- Second Law of Thermodynamics  
_

It's never been peaceful in Gotham.

Hell, you live with that fact since birth. Gotham's always been a hotbed of crime – put a few gang members in uptown; a psychologist who just snapped one day into the Narrows; any number of escaped criminal lunatics from Arkham into the residential areas… Something happens. Usually something bad. Here, it's pretty common that someone isn't gonna see their next birthday. If Gotham were a chemical, it'd be kerosene, hands down.

But nothing big happens. Well, not unless you count the constant gang threats and nightly crime waves that crop up. But nothing like a terrorist attack or a mall shooting, I mean. When it happened one or tiwce, we recovered; when it threatened, we took cover, and nobody got hurt. Oh, people died, but then again people die here every day. Twenty, thirty, forty deaths in one incident isn't enough to even shake the lid of the crucible, let alone blow it off. People got hurt – oh, lots of people – but they lived. Usually. We Gothamites are made of sterner stuff than lead bullets and steel blades… or so we liked to think. The little cracked flask of Gotham stayed precariously whole for the most part – disarranged, but barely holding together.

The glass had to shatter sometime.

I think it first started with the Bat, or whatever he calls himself, though I know other people'll disagree with me on that idea. When most of us first heard of him, we thought it was a joke. It sounded absurd, a huge superhuman bat gliding around the city by night, swooping in on some unsuspecting criminal to deliver justice. It was a fairy-tale , an urban legend, said the whispers – and yet the criminals seemed to believe in it undoubtably. The Batman… when we learned he was _real_, when a few of us first saw him and found the legend was _true_, none of us could believe it. This imposing shadow so few of us got a chance to glimpse… I like to think he was Gotham's first taste of Justice; of true balance. He was the base that neutralized the acid; the water that quenched the fire. Even the attack on the Narrows, a night so commonly remembered here as Terror Night, didn't stop him…

I still remember where I was on that night, locked inside and scared half to death something unseen would hurt me. And I happened to glance out the window, and I saw him, gliding wraithlike past my apartment, so blatantly real I couldn't have imagined it, not even with the horrible fear that had me paralyzed. It was incredible, to say the least, being in the presence of a legend, if only for a brief second. And he lived up to the reputation, and the reaction slowly died down as peace finally arrived in Gotham, if only briefly.

It was far, far too good to last.

The heat returned too fast, and cracks began to appear in the crucible. The first I remember hearing of it was the broadcast. God, that report… it was absolutely _brutal_ – A man dressed as Batman, He who had been our Savior, bound to a chair and pleading for his life. And the assailant… his voice was awful enough, but dear Lord, his _laughter_… I'll never forget that laugh as long as I live. Never. He was an explosive, chaotic, psychotic nightmare, precisely the kind of unstable isotope Gotham didn't need. He indiscriminately sliced through his victims with a laugh and a flash of his blade, leaving bloody grimaces wherever he walked. Abruptly, the crucible heated to a white-hot glow, threatening to explode, shattering and claiming yet more victims.

And the worst part? The Batman could do _nothing._ He tried, and failed, and tried and failed again – and for his failure, the grinning monster that calls himself the Joker _mocked him._ Oh, Batman locked the threat in Arkham eventually, long enough that the illusion of absolute zero became a very real-looking possibility. But it was, of course, temporary. A month later, the Joker _escaped_, leaving a bloody trail of madness in his wake.

He… he claimed he had an unfinished message to give us. He claimed we were all sheep; mere savages in civilized clothing. He still claims, and he'll claim it until the day he dies, that we'd all be better off in _chaos_, in entropy without limits or rules. His is a madness to destroy matter and create energy from nothing, and by God, did he use it to crack the crucible to utter disuse. Explosions, gunfire, twisted metal debris hitting asphalt, the horrible laughter of a smiling _killer_… such sounds of madness are commonplace now, pervading Gotham like a hideous aura.

And the truly terrifying part? The Batman _isn't here_. He… he left, abandoning all of us, and we've got no damn clue where he is. One night, he didn't answer the signal. He didn't come. People were dying by the minute, survivors were hiding in whatever meager shelter they could find, and _he didn't come._ Hours and hours of waiting proved fruitless, an experiment ruined in the final steps after painstaking tests. Meanwhile, the Joker destroyed us from the inside out, first by killing most of our town hall and taking the mayor's place and then by turning us against each other. He manipulated us all at some point – hell, none of the police can be trusted nowadays; they're all under his control now. People die right in front of those who would save them if they weren't so _corrupted._ Orphaned children cry from abandoned houses; half our buildings are nothing but rubble, and the other half explode before our very eyes. Gotham City is a living Hell.

And Arkham? The institute is _rubble and ashes_ now; only the skeleton of the iron, gated fence remains. All its inmates run free – and many of them are extremely violent. You can't even tell who's safe, stable, and sane anymore, because they _blend in_. And the scary thing is that most of them work for the Joker.

Sometimes, I envy them. They don't know better, they don't understand. All they have is their own little demented world they live in, some private escape. Even those with a mental Hell have it better – it's gotta be better than Gotham. Anything's better than this hellhole. I think it's a miracle we haven't all gone insane by now. We're not on his demented, base level yet. But still, still the few rebels aren't enough. You see people going his way, taking that oh-so-easy emergency exit into lunacy every day. Another passenger on the crazy train, another trainable minion for his cause. You see people break down in panic in the streets, people who just snap and attack their fellows for no reason, people found laughing uncontrollably and mumbling unintelligible mantras in alleyways, almost always covered in knife wounds. But they never have the Smile. No, nobody with the Smile survives. Nobody. Those marked with it _will_ die, if they aren't dead already.

I… I think it's how he marks his kills. It's a demented _points system_ to him. This is all one big, long, bad joke to him, and he's the only one laughing. God _damn you_, we've reached maximum entropy already, so why won't the heat stop increasing? Why won't the reaction cease?

If you wind up with the Smile, you're one of the lucky ones. Here, death is a blessing that few ever get. Those seeking it often find themselves tortured; those avoiding it receive it. All you can pray for here is a swift, relatively painless death, a death with no suffering.

A brand of death the Joker never deals.

The Gotham crucible's been cracked for years. It's shattered now; building rubble is its ceramic shards, the spilled blood is the spilled, sizzling, overheated chemical, still scalding and still painful to see. And all it took to break it was the right reagent; the right amount of heat. For all our struggles, we have only one prize; one conclusion: he won. And as I look out over the warzone that Gotham has become, I have no choice but to admit that he was right. Good Lord, he was _right_. He may have started the fire, but _we_ caused this mess. _We_ perpetuated it, not him. We're the horrible beasts that tore the city to shreds. Us, not him. Dear Lord, we're all savages, all of us.

God help us all.


	2. Experiment 2: Pressure

_A/N: It's been a long time since I came back to this one, let me tell you._

_This story, and its two corollary pieces which I am now posting, were written over a year ago – I was a different person then, at a different point in my life. I was just a fledgling Joker fan as well, and just barely getting into Batman comics proper. I still don't know anything, but since then I've read well past the 'required reading', so to speak – from the start to the present day, I've had a sampling of just about everything in the incredibly extensive, nearly 90 year span of this fandom and comic series. From rogues to riches, I've seen a little bit of everything. My opinions on how the Joker is best written have changed. So have my expectations for him as a character._

_They change depending on __**which**__ Joker I'm writing. With so many personas and takes on the guy to choose from, even in a single contained area such as the Nolanverse, how do you pick and choose? After writing Comic!Joker for close to a year now, returning to Ledger!Joker is like an expatriated native crossing back over into their home country – I understand the language, but things have changed just a bit while I was gone. I haven't seen The Dark Knight for a while now. I haven't read much Nolanverse JokerFic for a bit. I'm in tune with his concept, his wit and dangerous charm… but not with him. That pains me as an author, especially since the bulk of my work (rivaled only by my extensive poetry in the Myst/Uru fandom) IS in the Batman fandom – DCU, DCAU, and Nolanverse. This is a return to form for me. This is me taking what I know now and improving an old classic with it. These two story addendums have sat on my shelves for far too long, gathering dust and waiting to be written. It's time to once again look into the 'chemistry' behind Gotham City as it is in the Nolanverse, and how the Joker would affect it if the system remained unchecked._

_We know what happens when it has too much Entropy – but what __**else**__ can be said about it? The Pressure, for one, would be intense were Batman not around to stabilize things. A gas in a compressed container is under intense pressure, as Gotham City would be in this situation. One of the Gas Laws, Gay-Lussac's Law, states that as temperature of a gas in a container increases, the amount of pressure the gas exerts on the walls of that container also increases. This pressure is caused by the molecules of gas hitting the container's walls and bouncing off of each other – heating the gas up causes the particles to move faster and therefore hit harder, exerting more pressure. Trapped in a doomed city with no way out, and affected by the constant heat the Joker keeps putting the city under, the citizens of Gotham must feel like those particles right now, affected by too much heat and out of control of everything around them, and that's not even mentioning the intense pressure and stress they must be feeling internally. Anyone could crack – and that is precisely what happens here. Come with me and observe this little experiment, and observe what happens when the pressure becomes just a little too high for one wounded city to bear…_

* * *

**Pressure**

"_As the temperature of a container full of a gas increases,  
the total pressure exerted by the gas inside the container  
also increases."_

_- Gay-Lussac's Law_

* * *

I can't take this anymore.

There's too much heat. Too much pressure. We're all stuck here, and we've been stuck for months now. All the bridges are destroyed, the docks and ferries burned, and the helicopter pads blocked. Gone. Under _his_ use and _his_ only. People are dying in the streets and too afraid to leave their homes – they'd honestly be safer outside with how many murders occur with household break-ins now. Not that they can go anywhere. There hasn't been a way out since at least last December.

It's April now. The First of April, and we're all fucked. Gotham's gone to Hell. Sure, it's never been the nicest place, but now… now we're really done for, and nobody can get in or out. Not alive.

Some prank, huh?

Oh, they've tried to escape. I've seen 'em try. They throw themselves at the walls, trying so hard to break them down, trying to find just a single crack they can slip through to freedom. They try and try, running and scampering back and forth around the barriers surrounding the city now, with personal boats and cars and their own bodies, but with how heated things are these days, all they do is bounce off the walls, off each other, off the buildings.

I saw a little girl get trampled the other day when someone found a crack. The crack was too small for even a child to get through, even with all of them trying to break it open. In the end, only one person got halfway through, but there was a strong metal bar in the way, jutting broken out of the crack. And when they tried to get past it, they accidentally skewered themselves on it, right through their chest. Apparently it _just_ _barely_ missed his heart.

The cries of a dying man aren't pretty, let me tell you.

And of course, _he_ probably thinks it's funny. That smiling sonuvabitch probably _laughed_ when he heard about it; it was all over the news after all, or what little news is left now. And then, grinning, he turned the heat up. And he'll keep doing it, again and again, _just_ because he can. _Just_ to watch us all squirm.

_Just_ to see the tension build.

Shut up, it's the truth! I know – I used to _work_ for the unholy bastard. That's how I lost my eye, you know, why I look like this. I was one of the lucky ones. When _he_ says "an eye for an eye", he _means it._ He always said he was a man of his word…

What, you don't believe me? You think I'm _crazy_, don't you? You think I'm just as nuts as he is, _just_ because I was on his side once. Well, I'm not. I'm not crazy – I _swear_. I'm not insane… not like _him…_

It haunts me, the stuff I did for him. It scares me. I enjoyed it once. I don't anymore. I'm scared I'm becoming like _he is_. I honestly don't know _how_ I live through it, some days…

Believe me, I know. I _know_ how that man ticks; I've stared into those terrifyingly black, soulless eyes…

… They… They suck you in like _vacuums_, you know. They suck you in, and there's no way back out. There like two tiny black holes – there's nothing there, _nothing._ Not even a _personality_. Just madness. He can _paralyze you_ with a single look…

… I have no idea how I lived through working with him. How I survived his _torture_. See, I wasn't a _good_ boy. I squealed once, back when that Bat-freak was still around here. I squealed once and he decided that, instead of killing me, he'd keep me as an _example._ He tortured me for _weeks_; it's all a blur of pain to me, you know. Time really melds together when you're in agony. I was so close to death, so close. I should have _died_ there, but I didn't.

And then he took my eye. And then, somehow, I managed to break out. Drag myself over to the key while he was out and pick the door lock. Drag myself to safety and out of his field of vision. All I remember is collapsing and being found by someone who said she was a nurse some hours later. I'm lucky I ran into someone who knew what they were doing; someone who still cared. You don't see that around here anymore.

He's probably still looking for me, though. Still after all these months.

He's a predator, you know. He… he moves a _lot_ faster than you'd think. He can have a knife at your throat in seconds without you even knowing it until you feel the blade. And he savors _every moment of it_, every millisecond of your fear, and you can't help but stare at his hideous scars, into his void-like eyes…

… I'm sorry. I just… It's so hard, remembering it. It's like a recurring nightmare; I can't shake it, it clings like a magnet to steel. You can't imagine. You can't even _begin_ to understand how _horrific_ it is… That's why I look like this. Why you thought I was him at first – same type of hairstyle, same ugly carved scars on my face. I forget why he did it, exactly…

… It's coming back to me. He did it because I wouldn't smile for him. He did it because I wouldn't _listen._

He's out there tonight. He always takes walks on Friday evenings, always searching for some new thrill. Maybe someone to kill, maybe a hostage, maybe a cheap date, I don't know. But he always goes out tonight, a toxic gas seeping into the city and creeping along the alleyways, corroding all in its path as it goes… Somewhere in this city on this night, he's hiding, watching, waiting to attack. I'm usually indoors by now. I'm usually holed up somewhere. But not tonight – my normal spot got burned to the ground, destroyed either by him or by his followers, and now I'm on the run. Just you and me for now, bud.

But I meant it when I said he was _watching us._ Not literally, but he's watching. This is all a game to him, all an experiment. We're just an _experiment_ to him. As long as he keeps turning up the heat, we'll all keep hitting the walls until the tension gets too damn high and Gotham _destroys itself_. He's _toying_ with us, don't you get it? He's tearing us apart and he doesn't even have to do a _thing_ himself for it to happen. This reaction's a _spontaneous_ one.

And here's the worst part. We've let it happen. We're no better than he is. _We literally have to kill to live now._

You know it's the truth, don't look at me like that. I had to kill my best friend for water the other week. It wasn't even purified water, and I'm paying for it now – I've been ill for days now. Just yesterday, I saw a mother kill her own son for an apple – she had to choose herself over him, because if _she_ died there would be nobody to take care of him. It's eat or be eaten now. This city runs on _his terms_, and by _his rules_… or lack thereof.

We're… we're all living in _Hell._ There's no other way to put it. This is Hell, and Satan is _laughing at us_.

… Wait… I hear something. What is it? No, no, be quiet and _listen_…

… Oh.

Oh no. _Shit,_ no…

I hear _him._ That's _his_ laughter, _his_ footfall pattern. Stay back…

... Hide, kid. I _just_ saw the corner of his purple coat. Hide somewhere, anywhere, but _don't run._ If you run, he'll hear your footsteps, and if he hears you, you're done for. Get down and _stay down_ – he's like a _wolf!_

… I… God, I hate this…

I hate living like a damn _animal._ It's futile to keep running, I know. I've already lost _everything_. Why do I even _run_ anymore? He's just going to catch me eventually… Hell, he can _kill me_ for all I care!

What? No, I'm not crazy. I'm not nuts. But I think the container's starting the crack, if you catch my drift. I'm a lost cause; he might as well kill me, right? I'd rather die than snap in two. Besides, if it keeps a kid like you out of his claws, I'll do it. I'll do it for you.

… Stay down, kid. Stay down.

Hey! Hey you! Yeah, I'm over here, you _know_ who I am, don't you, you painted freak? Come on, do it! Come and kill me! _Kill me!_

… There we go, got his attention… Stay down, kid, stay –

No, dammit! What the _Hell_ are you doing? Don't run from him! Be a Goddamn _man!_

… Well, _fine_. It's your funeral, kid. You signed your death warrant as well as mine. It's not like he won't kill me anyway! There's _enough_ pressure in this little glass container without us, it doesn't need any more!

I'm… what the Sam Hill am I _doing?_ I'm cracking up, that's what, offering myself as some sort of sacrificial lamb! I gotta get out of here, I can't let him catch me.

But then again, he's already got me, hasn't he? It's too late to run now… he's seen me, he recognizes me, and there's no way out of this alleyway since he's standing in the way of the exit. Calmly coming towards me. The knife glinting silver in his hand.

He stands over me imposingly, at least a good foot taller than me, a look of calm surprise on his hideous face. Oh yes, he remembers me – the one who got away, the one who escaped his horrors too soon. I'm that one stray particle that hasn't hit the wall yet.

But the container's cracking more each day, and he's here to finish the job. To keep turning up the heat. He's not going to kill me – oh no, not yet. No, that's too easy.

He's taking me back. Back to the captivity I escaped from. And this time, I _will_ break, because he knows I'm already halfway there. Because the pressure is too high to handle.

Because I can't take it anymore.


	3. Experiment 3: Catalyst

_A/N: All good things must come to an end._

_Although I've added to this fic and even changed the fic title a bit, this little collection of stories is over with this final addition. It is a single attempt to get back into Ledger!Joker's mind again, to play inside his head and scrutinize him all the more. Not that he likes it when I do all that much, but he tolerates it. ;3_

_This is a look at how he would work in an Apocalyptic Gotham. This is the way he would have it if he brought it to that apocalypse. This is how he would behave, the catalyst to the destruction of this city. And that in turn brings me to yet another chemistry parallel – that of a catalyst._

_A catalyst, in the loosest sense of the term, is a chemical compound that causes a reaction to occur faster when it is added. The denaturing of a protein molecule, for example, occurs when the molecule is heated – this is exactly what occurs when you straighten your hair, or curl it with a curling iron. The heat from the iron actually denatures the proteins in your hair, causing them to form a different shape as the protein's shape uncoils. Many oxidation-reduction reactions require a catalyst to occur; for example water will not normally break down into Hydrogen and Oxygen gas, not unless an electric current is run through it (we call this electrolysis, literally, "breaking apart by electricity")._

_If Gotham City is a reaction occurring, and a one of decay at that, then surely the Joker being there can't help things much. In fact, every time Batman builds something up, Joker breaks it down. In this way, Gotham remains at equilibrium as long as Batman is there to keep Joker and other criminals from destroying too much. However, one can argue that (at least in The Dark Knight, where Gotham has been cleaned up mostly) the Joker rose up in response to Batman trying to bring order. If Batman is order, Joker is entropy. If Gotham is the reaction, Joker is the catalyst. Remove one or the other, and the system tries to shift back towards equilibrium (either by adding crime or adding order), which is essentially what happened in Gotham – at least in the Nolanverse, in my opinion._

_Thus the basis behind this fic. The Joker has won here. But how does he __**feel**__ about it? That is what we answer here today. Enjoy this final entry into the Apocalyptic Gotham series, and keep the reviews coming. _

_Before anyone asks, yes I know that the Nolanverse Two-Face had his face burned off, literally, not chemically burned; it's just a metaphor. Oh, and by the way, dihydrogen monoxide is just another way of saying "water". ;3_

* * *

**Catalyst**

"_Catalyst \ˈka-tə-ləst\ noun : Any substance which increases  
the rate of a chemical reaction and is itself unchanged._

_- Merriam-Webster New World English Dictionary, Fourth Edition_

* * *

One city.  
One Bat.  
Remove that last one.  
Add me.

_KABOOM._

That, _that's_ what happened in a nutshell. That's what _I did_ to _this city_;what I'll _keep_ doing.

Sodium chloride.  
Dihydrogen monoxide.  
Get rid of that pesky chlorine ion.

_Fire._

They say I killed him. The Bat. But I didn't. Hell, I'd never want my other half _dead!_ Who would I dance with _then?_

No, I didn't strip anything away, I didn't corrode anything. I'm not a damn acid.

Gotham, though… now _there's_ an acid. Sulphuric acid in a concentration so strong, it was _eating itself alive._

He, _he_ was the buffer, the lye that neutralized the solution – at least for a while. He was _just_ base enough a creature to neutralize Gotham's acidity. Just alkaline enough to keep everything at a pitiful pH of seven.

Then I arrived.

Kerosene.  
Heat.  
Here's the spark.

_FWOOM._

That's what happened. That's what I did to this town.

_Fwoom._

I _changed it._ I saw your rules and broke them. I played the cards, I placed the bombs, and I lit the fuses. I violated every possible law; I made matter from nothing and destroyed it, too.

Or not. See, Gotham was _always_ a seething cauldron. You could tumble into that chemical run-off and never even know how it _changed_ you, turning you into a lawless _freak_. You'd never know until you looked in the mirror and saw what it _did_ to you, burning your skin, staining your lips, dyeing your hair. Gotham corrupts absolutely; it's downright corrosive to the soul.

But that's assuming you even _have_ a soul.

It doesn't take too much to catalyze a reaction involving caustic chemicals. It never does. A murdered mayor here, a mass nuthouse break-out there…

Hydroiodic acid.  
A human arm.  
Your _tender skin_ melts away, dissolving under the heavy concentration.

_Burns,_ doesn't it? At least, that's what _Harvey_ found out, heheh.

It's incredible how willing they are to destroy themselves. I stop up a few bridges and put myself in charge, and the whole town goes mad.

I drove. This city. _Insane._

And the Bat didn't stop me.

… Where the Hell _is_ he, anyway? Hibernating for the winter? It's been close to three months now without so much as a single flapping black wing; I thought for _sure_ this'd shake some life into the guy!

… I… kinda _miss him_, to be honest. We really do make one helluva pair of aces, don't we? A constant reaction in a breaking beaker, shakily stabilized at equilibrium.

… He'll come back, I tell myself. He always does. He'll come back even if I have to burn this whole city to the ground. And then when he _does_ come back, he'll find me standing there, waiting in the ruins of a broken city.

And until then, I'll keep turning up the heat. I'll keep playing with my new toy until it _breaks_. I'll hunt its citizens and taunt them left and right until they crack, until they snap, until every last chemical bond is irreparably broken.

This city's _mine_. And if _I_ go down, then so help me, it's going down with me.


End file.
